


State of Grief

by orphan_account



Category: Wolfblood (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Self-Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meiner is faced with being human, and the loss of everything wolfblood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	State of Grief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadySilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/gifts).



Meiner stood on a hilltop under mother moon, bereft, while her family circled their prey in the oak tree below. Their lithe body's and glorious fur winked in the starlight and she listened to the victorious howls, knowing she could not join them. She would never howl again. She would never bark or sink her teeth into the bloody hide of a sheep. Her paws would never crunch on fiery maple leaves and send a thousand smells rushing up to her twitching black nose.

She was a cripple now.

She had been cut in half and left with only a husk of her former self, like a fish-skin on the shore of a river bank, and she faced the watery anguish of that with the same hardiness she had faced all the winters in her life. She was cold without her fur but she faced that too, because she did not think she would ever be truly warm again. The thin, flimsy skin humans wore everywhere did nothing to protect you from wind or rain or snow.

A joyous howl went up from the valley, and she looked at the crumbling stone wall beside her and thought about bashing her head against the sharp stones. Then what little blood she had left would soak into the ground and feed worthier things, like the Foxglove and Ivy.

She could not go back to her pack. She would be to them like a child or an old woman unable to run or hunt or change form. Meinir had always thought she would die proudly by some farmer's shot-gun or a under a plow before she faced the humiliation of that. Like old Heddwyn with his wrinkled skin and stringy white hair, who'd stopped changing last year.

He should have been driven from the pack, she thought with a curling lip. Ffion had more pride. When she had become too old she had left them to go die in the wild. Of course she was fortunate and had been left in her wolf form unlike Heddwyn, but the old man still should have felt the call to go onto the moors. It was tradition, and it was for the survival of the pack. They could not afford to feed and keep him despite Jana's stupid, tame sympathies.

If Ailric had still been pack leader he'd have seen Heddwyn off with teeth at his heels, but Jana would not hear of it. No, she saved him extra meat and kept his tent up, even though that should have gone to Esyllt, and of course Heddwyn's blood was so thin by then he just let Jana do it.

Mienir would not be so craven. She had always been a strong wolf. Even as a cub she would bully her way to the opening of the den's and tents to sniff at the outside world, while others were still mewling for milk at their mother's teets.

So when the moon had reached it's highest peak she took one last look at her baying family and whispered “goodbye, my brother,” choking slightly. “Remember me the way I was.”

Then she walked down the hill and onto the moor, certain that was the only thing for her to do. She went vaguely south, with no direction in mind and when the sun rose it found her crouched among the heath and heather, far away from everyone she'd ever loved.

She tore the plastic clips from her hair and pealed off the printed dress and sweater she'd been forced into, throwing them away with a shout and scowling at the rinds of domestication. She'd been dressed up like a doll after Kincaid had burned her own clothes. He claimed they smelled. She had tried to strangle him with a lamp cord. He had responded by bringing up Gwynn and Cadwr from the cellar, and coercing her into a wire lined bra and “civilized behavior.”

She hated that bra almost as much as she hated the ridiculous heeled shoes. Everything had pinched and hurt, and Kincaid had told her “they say pain is beauty,” with that cruel, condescending smile of his. Now, finally naked and free, Meiner let her breasts hang naturally and dug her toes into the muddy earth, savoring the first touch of dirt she'd had in a month. Then she lathered mud on her face and down to her naval, showing her loyalty to land and blood and the rites of old.

When she was caked in earth she crouched and began to dig a hole for herself, scraping at the ground with weak human fingers that were better for tying baskets and turning door knobs than digging. That was when she began to cry. At first it was just a trickle, then it became ugly heaving sobs that dribbled snot and salt water into her pitifully shallow grave. Her digging grew slower and eventually stopped while her mind brimmed over with terrible thoughts.

What if they did not want her? What if the One Pack, where all her ancestors and the hero wolves of old ran beyond death, drove her spirit off just like she would have driven off Heddwynn? She was human now. She had no place among them anymore then she did her old mortal pack. Would her spirit even remember how to run on all fours? Or had the humans taken that too? Perhaps her soul would be as fixed and immutable as her body. She had the horrible premonition of fleeing into the spirit world only to find that she was unable to smell or hear, or track her away across the starlit paths and find the One Pack at all. Then she would be doomed to wander as an unwanted wraith and haunt old caverns and roads.

A wail bled out of her, the agony of it all spilling onto the moor like the guts of a sheep and rising in pitch until she was screaming. But no one heard. The wind carried away the noise until her cries were as lost and feeble as her soul, and she waited for the Morwhal to rise and consume her, but the madness never came either.

She was left with nothing but a cold, drab reality; the mud on her legs, a ripped floral print dress, and scratches on knuckles that were not healing. The ends of her hair teased at her mouth and she breathed harshly with no more fury to expunge until somewhere to the south came a feeble bleat. She thought it was her own echo coming back to mock her, but then the wind died and the noise came again, clearer this time.

Meiner raised her head. It was a lamb, calling for its herd. It sounded weak and Meiner stood, cotton dress in hand and followed the noise over rocks and thorns and scrub until her shadow fell across a tiny lamb huddled under a bush of heather. The eyes were open, but it was shaking with cold. Meinir's belly quaked. It had been a long time since she'd eaten and she licked her lips remembering the taste of hot blood spilling over her tongue and the crunch of sinew and bone. She'd always liked sheep.

The lamb cried and she thought it must be a hardy animal to have survived the night alone out here. A weaker creature would have died of exposure. It still might. She crouched, and the lamb bleated again, looking at her pathetically.

“Aren't you going to surrender, little Diffoddwr?” she croaked, glaring at the young animal. It nosed at her hand. “Well why not?” she snarled. “You're wretched. You're nothing but food for dogs and humans.” The lamb tried to stand on wobbly legs and bumped into her knee. “But you are still going to stand there and try and live while _I_ lie in ground?”

She thought of her dead mother and father witnessing this pitiful scene, and winced, wiping at the mud and frozen tear tracks on her face. They would be so ashamed of her. Meinir had nothing left to her but a scrap of dignity, and to die knowing that a lamb had shown more courage and strength than her was a humiliation she simply could not bear. Not even in the face of losing her way into the next world, with the One Pack, which was an ultimate end she had always been sure of until now.    

Meiner snarled and then wrapped the lamb in the awful floral dress and hefted it into her arms, protecting the baby from the wind, which was making her own naked skin ache. The lamb nosed at her chin and she straightened her spine, and began walking south.

She followed the signs of a sheep herd that had passed some time ago, until a tiny farm appeared on the horizon. It took her most of the day, and she was as weak and cold as the animal in her arms when she reached it, but they were both alive. She stole clothes off the line. Baggy comfortable pants, thick field boots and layers of sweaters which she swaddled herself and Diffoddwr in. She stole milk for the lamb and meat for herself. She braided her hair, and poached a bag of tools and blankets from house.

When she left, walking south again with Diffoddwr sleeping in her arms, she looked like herself, and even though she felt hollow inside her back was straight. Because Meinir had always been a strong wolf. She could not stop picking fights even when she'd been stripped down to nothing and the only thing she had left to snap at was the wide world.  
   


End file.
